


r.e.m.

by killabeez



Category: Jeremiah (TV)
Genre: Episode Related, Ficlet, Gen, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-02
Updated: 2009-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:30:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killabeez/pseuds/killabeez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a LiveJournal fic meme for the prompts Jeremiah and Horror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	r.e.m.

Jeremiah's pretty sure there isn't anyone left in the world who sleeps well at night. The whole world is more or less a nightmare from which nobody ever woke up, and it doesn't do much good to talk about it. Just because he's old enough to remember a time when things were different, that doesn't make him special.

It's only after his dad comes back that his nightmares start to get… bad. Bad like after Michael died. Bad as in waking him up in cold sweats, his heart pounding like he's one breath from dying, like he never wants to go to sleep again.

It's not Michael dying that he sees now. It's Kurdy, and Markus, and Libby, and Erin. It's the Big Death, eating away at their faces, while they laugh, and laugh, and can't hear him when he tries to tell them they're in danger. _You're obsessed,_ Libby tells him, when he tries to make her see. Her face is a ruin of lesions. _You can't protect anyone._

"Hey. Hey! Dude, take it easy. It's me. It's me, okay?"

Jeremiah comes back to the waking world with Kurdy's big hands locked around his arms. It takes him a minute to realize his hands are clenched into fists, and he's been swinging at Kurdy like he means it. He's wet with sweat and shaking like he's fighting for his life.

For a second, his relief is so intense a sob catches in his chest. Then he remembers. He fucked up. He fucked things up so bad with Kurdy that he isn't sure why Kurdy's even talking to him any more.

He pulls away, shrugging Kurdy off and rubbing a hand over his face.

"Sorry. Sorry, man, I didn't mean to. Just a bad dream."

Kurdy gives a sharp laugh. "You think?"

Jeremiah shakes his head, wry. "Fuckin' A." It's bullshit -- he's a wreck, and one breath from seriously losing it, but he can't deal with Kurdy seeing him like this. He can't deal with Kurdy acting like everything's okay between them. "Get off me, man. I'm fine."

"Right," Kurdy says, dubious. "You're fine."

"Yeah, man," Jeremiah says, and pushes past him, swinging his bare feet to the floor. "I'm good."

**Author's Note:**

> This prompt made me stare blankly at the screen. His whole childhood was horror. Which part to choose? But then I remembered how I felt about the scene in "Rites of Passage" where his dad tells the hilarious story about how he and Jeremiah's mom forgot Jeremiah in a restaurant when he was a baby, and all his friends laugh about it.


End file.
